This is the closest I might ever come to agreeing with the Colorado Minutemen, an offshoot of the vigilantes who like to strap on handguns and play Border Patrol.
The group, which claims 50 members, says it wants the Denver Public Library to ban racy Spanish-language adult comic books, called fotonovelas, it discovered on the shelves of several branches two weeks ago.
For the uninitiated, fotonovelas are pocket-sized adult comic books. Some are murder mysteries. Others are romance novels. Sex – the mundane fare, nothing kinky – finds it way into the story line. The female character winds up naked, baring huge breasts and a backside that makes J.Lo look flat.
The Minutemen protested in front of the main branch Monday to draw attention to the books, which the library already had removed for examination a week earlier.
As news cameras rolled, it didn’t take long for the speakers, all men, to veer off subject and rant about illegal immigrants.
“You hear they want to come to work. They also want to come and kill, bring down wages and demean our quality of life,” said Robert Copley Jr., co-founder of the Colorado Minutemen Project.
It was typical bait and switch, to which I had to roll my eyes. That diatribe, again?
At that point, I hadn’t seen the fotonovelas in question, but I did see a display of vulgarity on T-shirts worn by two of the men who rallied alongside Copley.
The back of a T-shirt worn by a guy resembling Grizzly Adams read: “Get a real bike, you (two expletives).” One of the expletives was a gerund form of the F-word; the other was a derogatory term for female genitalia.
Another man wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Experienced Professionals Wanted.” Underneath, were silhouettes of three naked women in various sexual poses with the phrases: “Several positions available. Great benefits. Flexible hours.”
Copley agreed the shirts were tacky. A few hours later, we met at The Tattered Cover so I could see the fotonovelas he borrowed before library officials removed all 6,500 books from their shelves.
So here’s where I agree with Copley and his Minutemen: Of the four fotonovelas in his possession, two were raunchy.
I am against the objectification of women. But I’m not alarmed about public libraries offering fotonovelas. The tales are harmless to adults. If it gets people reading – in any language – that’s a plus.
Copley says he’s worried “little horny kids” who stumble upon them will think violence is an accepted part of sex.
That’s a stretch. Kids learn morals at home, not at the library, where they should be supervised anyway.
Sadly, on the Colorado Minutemen website, there are photos of a young girl looking through these fotonovelas. The shots are obviously posed. The parent of this child should feel ashamed.
Kids always will be curious about sex and nudity. As a kid, I often snuck peeks at the paintings and sculptures of naked men in my mother’s art books. It didn’t make me a perv.
Some ultrareligious folks may not want to believe sexuality is normal. But that’s not what this was about.
It took five minutes at the Ross-Barnum branch to find adult comic books in English that were full of violence and sex. In these comics, men stab, punch, kick and strangle women. One even stabbed a woman in the eye.
It’s no worse than what’s in the fotonovelas and not any more offensive than T-shirts worn by Copley’s cohorts.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
